AFRICA: A STORY OF GROWTH

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Africa represents what we like to call "frontier" markets. To provide some perspective, you can think about global markets in three distinct segments. "Developed" markets like the U.S. and Europe sit at the top—they have strong regulation, a lot of liquidity, and broad, diversified industries. "Emerging" markets like China and India are a level down from there in terms of development. And "frontier" markets, like most of Africa and the Middle East, are areas where people haven't really invested before—they're nascent markets that have been very illiquid. Historically, you haven't been able to get much exposure to them, but now they are becoming investable thanks to greater integrity in the general business environment, a number of infrastructural improvements, and greater stability overall thanks to social, economical and political reforms. And because these markets are starting from such a low base, they're growing very quickly.

TIME FOR BLACKS TO STEP UP!

With a Obama being re-elected and the Pope stepping down, it's time for Black folks to reassert their leadership in the world. What we are witnessing is a sea change of mammoth proportions. The African diaspora has to be ready. Egypt ruled the world for thousands years. I think this is the dawning of an African renaissance. More to follow!

TRUTHS BEHIND AFRICAN POVERTY

The Misperceptions About African Poverty from 

From FONDAD: Forum of Debt and Development 

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The era of structural adjustment, which can be dated approximately to the last two decades of the twentieth century, was a failure for African economic development. Africa was the only major developing country region with negative per capita growth during 1980 to 2000; its health conditions are by far the worst on the planet; its soaring population is exacerbating ecological stresses; and despite the policy-based development lending of structural adjustment, it remains mired in poverty and debt. 

What went wrong?

In the extreme interpretation of the Washington Consensus by its proponents, as well as by its critics, its unambiguous promise is that if a developing country were to implement conservative macroeconomic policies while expanding the role of the private market at the expense of the state, then it would achieve sustained high growth rates on its own. By extension, if a developing country is failing to grow, the problem must be either macroeconomic mismanagement or a hindering of the private market expansion in the country, usually attributed to corruption or more broadly “bad governance”.   

A BETTER EXPLANATION

A better explanation of Africa’s poverty trap would move beyond the limitations of the Washington Consensus to recognise that before privatisation and market liberalisation can unleash private sector-led economic growth in Africa, a massive amount of public investment in health, education, and infrastructure is required, which African countries cannot afford. Africa’s poverty trap is the outcome of a complex web of many interactive factors, including structural conditions and socio-political history:

• Very high transport costs and small markets; 
• Low-productivity agriculture;  
• Very high disease burden;  
• A legacy of adverse geopolitics;  
• Very slow diffusion of technology from abroad.

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Featured Book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Youtube Video: Apologies of an Economic Hit Man

From: Wikipedia Article: Neocolonialism

The political-science term neo-colonialism became popular usage in reference to the continued European control — economic, cultural, etc. — of African countries that had been decolonized in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–45). Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana (1960–66), coined the term neo-colonialism in the book Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965)^[5][6] As a political scientist, Nkrumah theoretically developed and extended, to the post–War 20th century, the socio-economic and political arguments presented by Lenin in the pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), about 19th-century imperialism as the logical extension of geopolitical power to meet the financial investment needs of the political economy of capitalism.^[7]

Kwame Nkrumah
http://therisingcontinent.wordpress.com
/2012/07/05/kilombo-2012-annual-event-at-woezor-hotel-ho-ghana-from-24th-to-26th-august-2012/
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 In Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah said that:In place of colonialism, as the main instrument of imperialism, we have today neo-colonialism . . . [which] like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries. . . . The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment, under neo-colonialism, increases, rather than decreases, the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world. The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.^[8]

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WHEN THE MOORS RULED EUROPE

On Youtube, "When the Moors Rule Europe"
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Moorish history is part of Black Heritage. Although Islam came from Arabia, most northern Africans adopted Islam as their religion. Unified by Islam, Africans excelled in the military conquest, the arts, sciences, and intellectual pursuits. 

From: GENERAL HISTORY OF AFRICA III Editor: M. Elfasi

"The Arab conquest of was in many ways similar to but also in many ways different from all other conquests known to the world. First, although inspired by religious teaching, the Arabs did not expect the conquered people, in principle, to enter their religious community; the conquered people were allowed to maintain their old religious allegiances. But after a few generations the majority of the urban population adopted Islam and even those who did not do so tended to use Arabic as a common medium of culture. 

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The distinctive and rich civilization that characterized the Muslim world at its height came into being through the amalgam of varied traditions of all the people who adopted Islam or lived under its sway. It inherited not only the material of intellectual achievements of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean world but also appropriated and absorbed many elements of Indian and Chinese origin and transmitted them further.  

It would be erroneous to see the Muslim civilization merely as a simple conglomerate of bits and pieces of borrowed cultural goods. At first, of course, many traits were appropriated directly without any reshaping but gradually they were combined, enlarged and developed into new patterns that served both as resource and stimulus to creative Muslim sciences, artistic expression and technological innovations. In this way emerged the Muslim civilization with its own distinctive pattern corresponding to the new universalistic spirit and new social order."